Random rantings about everything.

Tag Archives: Civil Rights

There is a hot topic that revolves around bathrooms. No, it has nothing to do with which preference you have when it comes to how you put the toilet paper on the roll or the age-long argument about placing a new roll of toilet paper rather than just putting it on the empty one. First off all, in my house my husband has a preference whereas I just put the roll on any way I feel like because it doesn’t matter (scandalous). Secondly, my husband knows better and will put the nearly empty roll on top of the new one that he just put on the roll. There is no debate about this in our household.

The bathroom controversy that I am speaking about is where transgender people are concerned. Some people feel as though for the safety of everyone, people must use the bathroom according to their birth gender. So a transgender female in a dress using a urinal is not going to cause any problems, such as slurs and potential assaults in the bathroom. However, that same person in the ladies room would be likely to abuse a female child easier with lax rules on this topic? Do I get the argument?

If someone wants to assault a child in a bathroom, they already do it. Strict laws prohibiting people who are not “born female” are not going to stop it from happening. It’s really the same logic that is applied to gun control. Why should there be any gun control if the person is going to find another way to obtain the gun to cause harm? The fact is that there are some bad people out there and they are going to do what they want regardless of any laws out there. (Spoiler alert: I’m pretty sure there are laws that prohibit anyone from sexually assaulting another person.) That is a sad reality of the world we live in. Bad people are just going to do bad things and laws do not prevent this. Stricter punishments do. Though we all know how harshly rapists are punished: 2 months probation and gets to go to the college of their dreams without their lives being destroyed as they destroyed their victims lives.

I have a great idea. How about we make transgender bathrooms that are both separate but equal to the “normal people” bathrooms? That has worked out so well for us in the past, why wouldn’t it work now? (Since sarcasm doesn’t always translate well in text, I will clearly state that this statement was dripping in sarcasm.) You are not going to know if a transgender person is in the stall next to you. They just want to go to the bathroom, hopefully wash their hands, and leave just like you do. They are not stalking you in the bathroom, hoping to catch a glimpse of you. If someone is, they are a sexual predator and they should be arrested. For instance, Ben Roethlisberger was accused of sexually assaulting a woman in the ladies room and he is not a transgender female. If you want a scary fact, look at the high numbers of the transgender community that have been sexually assaulted (and even murdered afterwards). Again, bad people are just going to do bad things.

The transgender community is the new minority that people need to fight for. People do not understand this community and let’s face it: people are afraid of things that they don’t understand. I cannot stand by and watch a community of people have to struggle for the basic freedoms that everyone else has. Did we not learn anything from the Civil Rights movements of the 50’s and 60’s? Why do we always have to fight for these things? I am a proud ally and others should stand up for those who can’t. We cannot let an entire community struggle with the rights that they were born with as an American citizen and to allow that to happen is truly wrong. Everyone had to deal with this struggle in their history, so we should know better by now.